The agents stress its central location and high-quality interior, which includes Villeroy & Boch bathroom fittings, Canadian maple flooring and secure underground parking.. We often start around 12 per cent but can end up at 10, or even 8 per cent.”However, the kudos from the presence of a Blair in the development could lift prices. One agent, a specialist in the rental market, said: “That doesn’t require much serious horse-trading. Flats in the seven-storey block, with views over the Mendips, had been popular but the others facing the congested road had sold only with inducements such as free furniture and solicitors’ fees, one agent said.Letting experts were also sceptical that the Blairs had benefited much when their agent, Hydes of Bristol, dropped its commission from 12.5 per cent to 10 per cent, including management of the property.

As one agent put it: “There are only a limited number of doctors and BBC executives looking for homes.”Despite its central location and expensive fittings, the Panoramic development prized by the Blairs has hardly been selling itself. But excess supply has made it a buyers’ market in this category. We had five flats in a similar development and offered a discount of up to 25 per cent.”The Blairs’ property deal has to be seen in the context of the city’s property market.Demand for period houses in upmarket Clifton and one-bedroom flats in central Bristol remains strong, but since a series of office-block conversions completed in the last 18 months agents have found the £200,000-£300,000 prestige apartments preferred by the Prime Minister and his wife difficult to shift.According to one agent, there have been around 1,500 new units in the last 18 months, starting with Redrow’s 52.10, and including Royal Parade and Capricorn Quay – both near the university and within 10 minutes of the Blairs’ flat. It seems to be that they took the first thing that suited them. It is rare for an estate agent to admit that a buyer could have got a better deal but that was the consensus forming yesterday about the Blairs’ “bargain” flats in Bristol.
One agent based in Park Row, where the Panoramic apartment block is situated, said: “They could have been a lot more aggressive if they wanted. That has turned out to be a damaging political mistake.John Rentoul’s biography of Tony Blair is published by Warner Books.

She knew that he disapproved of her closeness to Caplin because of the risk of “unhelpful” stories from her range of interests and associates. But Cherie is more naive than he is about how she and her actions appear to other people.It is entirely believable that she did not tell Alastair Campbell the full story when the Mail on Sunday faxed its 22 impertinent questions last Saturday. She is highly intelligent and very ambitious – for her beliefs and for her husband. But, after Blair got into trouble over Geoffrey Robinson’s loan of his Tuscan villa, holiday bookings have been put on a strict pay-as-you-go basis – leaving the press to argue about whether donations to charity in lieu have been enough to cover the market value.The truth is that Cherie is a sane, if driven, person.

In the early days, certainly, these were offered free by various rich so-called friends, eager to ingratiate themselves. She has been doggedly loyal to Caplin, who first made the headlines during Blair’s first Labour Party conference as leader in 1994 as a result of her former career as a topless model – despite the warnings of Alastair Campbell, her husband’s press secretary.As for the idea that Cherie is any more obsessed with money than the rest of us, this seems to arise from selective press reporting of the Blairs’ holidays. This Mail on Sunday scoop involved the mother of Carole Caplin, her personal trainer and assistant, whose boyfriend is at the centre of the latest hoo-ha.The worst thing that Cherie is guilty of is that, unlike her husband, she is not such a good instinctive judge of people. She was accused of wearing a pendant sold as having healing powers, but it turned out it was a present from Hillary Clinton.She may think there is something in acupuncture – many doctors do – but we should be a little sceptical of the claim that she has used a medium. When an acupuncture needle earring was spotted in her ear, the tabloids tracked down the alternative therapist responsible, Bharti Vyas, and had fun with some of her more extravagant treatments, which Cherie had not used.